CELEBRATING GOD’S GOODNESS

/The Rt Rev Datuk Ng Moon Hing | STM Alumni, Former STM Council President

When I responded to God’s call to full-time ministry, my pastor told me that you had to go to STM for training. I asked，”What is STM?” At the same time, there were two new entities existed in the nation, namely System Television Malaysia and Syarikat Telekom Malaysia – I asked which one? First, I have not heard of STM，and no one had graduated yet. All my peers then went to US, UK or Australia for their theological training. I was quite disappointed on one hand that I did not get to go overseas for training, but on the other hand, I was happy because the church sponsored me for my theological studies. I was told that being trained locally has a few advantages: first, you are right in the midst of the harvest fields and know first hand the challenges and nature of them; secondly, you get to learn about the local culture and politics first hand, as we had a course on Malaysian Society where we frequently had politicians and Ministers as our seminar or lecture speakers – YB Anwar Ibrahim, who was then a new Youth & Sport Minister, came to our campus and did a seminar in 1982; thirdly, we learnt about the theology of contextualisation and indigenisation and its application to our immediate situations – such as the Bank Rakyat scandal, Bank Bumiputra scandal, Tanjung 1 & 2 & 3 issues, Operasi Lallang, Operasi Memali, Maminco Tin scandal, etc.

The Humble Beginning and the Growth

The first STM campus was in Brickfields in the compound of Zion Lutheran Church, Kuala Lumpur. It was a small building with a few accommodation rooms for ladies and men, a kitchen, a dining cum chapel room, a small office, and a small library, and two classrooms. The majority of the students stayed outside the campus in the flats of the Brickfield community, namely Tong Weng and Tong Soon flats. When I found out that each of us has a monthly pocket money of RM40.00, some of us were displeased, but I was very happy. I have never expected there will be monthly allowance of RM40.00. This monthly allowance was for our personal items – toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, soap powder, photocopying, writing papers, books, pens and Sunday offerings.

The early STM communities were full of colours and challenges. Every day we gathered for worship at our Even-Song. Every week we have chore duties: cleaning the campus rooms, dining/chapel, kitchen, office, library, and gardening. Later, we learnt that our monthly allowance actually was the salary of the gardener and cleaners shared among the students. On many occasions, when there was no cook, we took turns to buy the grocery and do the cooking. The daily worship and chore duties carried on while we moved to the STM second campus in Sentul at the site of the present Wesley International School. The third campus was at Xavier’s Hall in Petaling Jaya. The fourth campus is at the present site in Taman South East in Rahang, Seremban. Each campus is bigger than the previous with better facilities and a larger campus and more spacious for community interaction. The present site truly represents a tertiary campus. One of my favourite desires is to see students having a proper, conducive, and comfortable campus life throughout their tertiary education. A conducive education environment does certainly enhance good and balance relational and spiritual development; a safe environment creates healthy mental-physical-emotional building up; a comprehensive and sufficient resources environment provides good scholarship and academic achievement.

STM has certainly grown – in size, maturity, contributions and achievements. In the early years, there was only one programme i.e. BTh. We have seen the growth from full-time studies to Theological Education by Extension (TEE) to Masters and Doctoral programmes. However, STM must maintain its original aim, that is, to train and equip local church leaders and pastors to be disciples of Jesus Christ in their churches and with mission-emphasis beyond and in nation building. Amid challenges from within and without the churches, STM must maintain its calling to keep the faith in Jesus Christ biblically and guard its truth wholeheartedly without compromising its agenda to be witnesses and disciples in all nations.

God’s Faithfulness through STM’s Journey of Provision

Right from the first day (6 January 1979), STM has been facing financial, lecturers, resources and facilities difficulties. Over these forty-five years, STM has seen God leading, guiding and providing sufficiently and abundantly. God has never failed STM, and He will continue to provide. At the end of each year, the STM administrative office will issue a letter informing the churches of its deficits. God has silently done His part by getting well-wishers and partners and churches to rise to the occasion. When we pray to Him for lecturers, He has never stopped supplying faithful people who loved to teach and train God’s people. Similarly, concerning resources and facilities, He has again and again made sure we have sufficient and the best. Every lecturer, staff and students of STM must learn to see God’s faithfulness in this investment which began more than half a century ago by our forefathers in faith. The churches then were smaller and with lesser resources when they first embarked on such a project, yet they stepped out by faith. In fact, all the early batch of students from the Brickfield campus have retired from the administration of church ministry. Today the batch from Sentul campus are slowly reaching their retiring era. Many of STM graduates have been the top-level church leaders and denominational leaders as well as Christian leaders for our nation and overseas.

The Continuing Vision

The world today has changed much from half a century ago, thus the style of theological training too. Once our students were from the youth and young adult categories. Today more and more people from the adult category are responding to the call of God. They may not be so versatile to live on the campus full-time or leave their career. Many of them still need the finance to support their families, both for the young and the seniors. Therefore, they would need a different format of training in addition from the full-time or TEE mode. Today there is a new model of training which is considered as Mixed-Mode that is where they keep their career and serve in their own churches while studying one evening per week and crash courses a few times a year either in person or online. STM while maintaining full-time and TEE can at the same time consider the Mixed-Mode model. Our aim is to provide training and equipping the churches, the style is only secondary.

While our founding forefathers did not anticipate how STM will be in 45 years today will look like, similarly it would be difficult for us to anticipate how STM will be in the next 45 years. My desire is to see STM grow and to become a Christian University in Malaysia with branch campuses. Unless we have the vision, we will not see it. Unless we have the passion and the faith, we will not realise its potential. The rationale is that if we trust STM to teach and train the future leaders of our churches, can we not do the same to the leaders of our nation.

 ‘Our God is so big, so mighty that nothing my God cannot do’. I have never doubted God whenever STM has annual shortfall. When the idea of the new administration block was mooted in the STM Board, I was one of those with full support, because my God will surely provide. I relentlessly offered my assistance to see it through.

I have one caution to make and a proposal for it: STM can disappear in seconds or like a mist if we do not take note of the following:

1. Be Steadfast – Guard the Faith in Jesus Christ as it was once delivered while providing training.
2. Be Transformative – Oriented in mission and nation building while maintaining the quality of education.
3. Be Motivated – Count the blessings God has done and will do for STM while trusting in God’s providence.